Meanwhile, ACT road toll remains around 10 every year… I’d be willing to bet we have the highest number of speed cameras per capita – and also the lowest road death rate per capita.

We do have the lowest death rate but not the lowest severe road trauma rate.

Whilst deaths due to car accidents are on a long term decline, accidents and severe trauma are on a steady rise.

What this indicates is that better car safety standards and greater and more sophisticated medical intervention are keeping the victims of car crashes alive, but severely injured.

According to the Dept of Infrastructure & Regional Development statistics the cost of road crashes is now estimated at $27 billion a year.

Over 34,000 severely injured victims every year end up on the Australian hospital and social welfare budgets.

The ACT share of that is over $440 million per year.

Our high survival rate is probably due to lower speed limits and lack of rural driving, combined with the close proximity of health care. Country people are disproportionately represented in the road statistics both as fatalities and severe injuries. It is hard to get too far from help in the ACT.

Cars are a fact of life (and death).
What about the severe traumas resulting from bicycle accidents? You have conveniently left out any reference to them.

“Over 34,000 severely injured victims every year end up on the Australian hospital and social welfare budgets.”
My post was in relation to the cost to the community not to speed humps in Lycra running down pedestrians.

Meanwhile, ACT road toll remains around 10 every year… I’d be willing to bet we have the highest number of speed cameras per capita – and also the lowest road death rate per capita.

We do have the lowest death rate but not the lowest severe road trauma rate.

Whilst deaths due to car accidents are on a long term decline, accidents and severe trauma are on a steady rise.

What this indicates is that better car safety standards and greater and more sophisticated medical intervention are keeping the victims of car crashes alive, but severely injured.

According to the Dept of Infrastructure & Regional Development statistics the cost of road crashes is now estimated at $27 billion a year.

Over 34,000 severely injured victims every year end up on the Australian hospital and social welfare budgets.

The ACT share of that is over $440 million per year.

Our high survival rate is probably due to lower speed limits and lack of rural driving, combined with the close proximity of health care. Country people are disproportionately represented in the road statistics both as fatalities and severe injuries. It is hard to get too far from help in the ACT.

Cars are a fact of life (and death).
What about the severe traumas resulting from bicycle accidents? You have conveniently left out any reference to them.

Not “conveniently” at all. Perhaps you can tell us how many people bicycles run over and kill? Also the bike related crime?

Listening to you car deaths and trauma are just acts of God, drivers just happen to be around.

Meanwhile, ACT road toll remains around 10 every year… I’d be willing to bet we have the highest number of speed cameras per capita – and also the lowest road death rate per capita.

We do have the lowest death rate but not the lowest severe road trauma rate.

Whilst deaths due to car accidents are on a long term decline, accidents and severe trauma are on a steady rise.

What this indicates is that better car safety standards and greater and more sophisticated medical intervention are keeping the victims of car crashes alive, but severely injured.

According to the Dept of Infrastructure & Regional Development statistics the cost of road crashes is now estimated at $27 billion a year.

Over 34,000 severely injured victims every year end up on the Australian hospital and social welfare budgets.

The ACT share of that is over $440 million per year.

Our high survival rate is probably due to lower speed limits and lack of rural driving, combined with the close proximity of health care. Country people are disproportionately represented in the road statistics both as fatalities and severe injuries. It is hard to get too far from help in the ACT.

Cars are a fact of life (and death).
What about the severe traumas resulting from bicycle accidents? You have conveniently left out any reference to them.

Meanwhile, ACT road toll remains around 10 every year… I’d be willing to bet we have the highest number of speed cameras per capita – and also the lowest road death rate per capita.

We do have the lowest death rate but not the lowest severe road trauma rate.

Whilst deaths due to car accidents are on a long term decline, accidents and severe trauma are on a steady rise.

What this indicates is that better car safety standards and greater and more sophisticated medical intervention are keeping the victims of car crashes alive, but severely injured.

According to the Dept of Infrastructure & Regional Development statistics the cost of road crashes is now estimated at $27 billion a year.

Over 34,000 severely injured victims every year end up on the Australian hospital and social welfare budgets.

The ACT share of that is over $440 million per year.

Our high survival rate is probably due to lower speed limits and lack of rural driving, combined with the close proximity of health care. Country people are disproportionately represented in the road statistics both as fatalities and severe injuries. It is hard to get too far from help in the ACT.

Call me strange but I want the road safety measures implemented by our government to be based on sound research, effective strategies and clear objectives. Both studies done in the ACT on our speed cameras have shown they achieve none of this.

The vast majority of casualty crashes in the ACT are not caused by or even involve speeding. Rolling out more speed cameras will have no effect whatsoever on the hundreds of people who are going to be injured on our roads in the coming years.

All it does is provide pollies and the police with the appearance of doing something about road safety without actually doing something aside from revenue raising.

Yeah the don’t speed don’t pay is a very simplistic argument and also doesn’t help.
Speed cameras do catch people speeding and raise revenue. They don’t help with overall safety, they don’t stop drink drivers (they probably catch drink drivers though and issue then a speeding ticket), they don’t help with tailgating, they don’t help with road safety.

The thing is it gives the illusion of caring without costing them too much.
Speed cameras if they are truly about safety should be in school zones and 40 zones in general.
Some roads in Canberra are built for traffic to drive at 100 km/h. Set the speed limit to realistic speeds and you’d have less speeding in general. The whole slowing traffic down to 30 was another stupid idea. It doesn’t help the child who gets hit by the car doing 40….. But putting in 30 limits looks like you care and its everyone else’s problem then.

Also a lot of people have no idea about road rules and generally have no idea about safety.

Call me strange but I want the road safety measures implemented by our government to be based on sound research, effective strategies and clear objectives. Both studies done in the ACT on our speed cameras have shown they achieve none of this.

The vast majority of casualty crashes in the ACT are not caused by or even involve speeding. Rolling out more speed cameras will have no effect whatsoever on the hundreds of people who are going to be injured on our roads in the coming years.

All it does is provide pollies and the police with the appearance of doing something about road safety without actually doing something aside from revenue raising.

Haha I’m with you. Unfortunately Canberra’s impatient drivers don’t seem to be able to grasp that simple concept. I’ve had the interesting experience of doing a fair bit of driving in both metro and regional areas of Australia. I honestly don’t think any particular town or city has the ‘worst’ drivers, but I’ve found that Canberra’s are among the most impatient I’ve ever come across. Try hesitating for a moment in a mall parking garage. Hint: brace yourself for the onslaught of abuse you’ll receive.

I’ve no problems with that equation (dont speed = dont pay). But add ‘road safety’ into the mix and you’ve lost all my respect and trust.

Want to install cameras to increase revenue? Fine. Just be honest about that.
Want to increase road safety and you’re using cameras to achieve that? If you’ve no data/measurements to support effectiveness, then that’s just wrong and I’m against it.

Haha I’m with you. Unfortunately Canberra’s impatient drivers don’t seem to be able to grasp that simple concept. I’ve had the interesting experience of doing a fair bit of driving in both metro and regional areas of Australia. I honestly don’t think any particular town or city has the ‘worst’ drivers, but I’ve found that Canberra’s are among the most impatient I’ve ever come across. Try hesitating for a moment in a mall parking garage. Hint: brace yourself for the onslaught of abuse you’ll receive.

Expanding the speed camera network year upon year is nowhere near enough. What we really need is “safety cameras” constantly recording inside every Canberran household. Just think of how many domestic accidents this will prevent – and how many lives will be saved!! You know it makes sense.

Not a waste of money, as such, because they will recoup costs many times over during their service. But as a road safety measure they are a waste of time. They won’t detect drunk or drugged drivers, tailgaiters, drivers not indicating, drivers not giving way etc etc. They probably even contribute to some crash statistics as drivers are constantly watching their speedos instead of the road.

I’m with Felix. There must be more effective ways to crack down on dangerous drivers without speed cameras, which are blatant revenue raising – especially when they aren’t positioned in road safety black spots.

Would love to see some stats before and after to go with these camera’s.

Namely:
Accidents along the whole route before and the reduction of accidents since the cameras started.
The number of accidents caused by speed changes at the point of the traffic light.
The actual operational time of the cameras.

Felix said “recoup costs many times over during their service”
Sure but at the cost of that money going into local businesses. You’d probably have a point if the speed cameras are made locally but I really doubt they are, more than likely the company that’s based overseas costs significant amounts to install and maintain them. (if its anything like the Euro traffic lights or number plates).

The fact that most accidents happen at intersections means that speed cameras are almost useless.

Just about any car speed research will say that most people speed because they believe that the actual speed limits aren’t correct for the road. And in the ACT this is made worse by cheap nasty uneven speed bumps.